Batman & Robin

Certificate: PG

Running time: 125 mins

Director: Joel
Schumacher

Starring: Arnold Schwarzenegger,
George Clooney, Chris O’Donnell

Genre: Comic book,
Action, Adventure

Country: USA

Batman Forever proved to be a success at the box office thanks
to it’s family friendly tones and lower certification. More of the same please?! Well that’s what came along. Kilmer’s ever changing mood and anger
management issues were enough for Schumacher to opt on recasting. Out went the Heat star to be replaced by E.R
and promising movie start-to-be George Clooney with a voice and jaw line
that seemed to fit the cowl perfectly.
The terrible Chris O’Donnell returns, alongside an even more sidelined
Pat Hingle and Michael Gough. Joining
the alumni is Uma Thurman, Alicia Silverstone and most preposterously Arnold
Schwarzenegger.

The family ties in Wayne Manor are strained as Poison Ivy turns them
against one another and Mr. Freeze sets about returning Gotham
into a modern day ice age. Can Batman
and Robin prevent the evil duo or will their feud and yet more neon foil their
efforts? Like Batman Forever there’s an early strike in this film, the third
strike…the critical blow to the Caped Crusader.
“I want a car, chicks dig the car” “This is why Superman works alone”…oh
dear Christ, strike three…before there’s even a hint of Bat-nipple…wow! That’s it really. If you’re looking for positives (as I
generally try to offer up positives in all my reviews) you might as well stop
reading now. The fact that the film eventually
ends is pretty much the only positive I can find. It is truly God awful. One of the worst atrocities ever committed to
celluloid.

Schwarzenegger is terrible, it’s not his fault…only a moron would cast
him as Mr. Freeze. Any scientific
dialogue (there’s not much) is stumbled over, the rest is 75% pun. His actions are laboured and presence is
tiring to watch. Clooney looks good in
the Batsuit, though the suit is now significantly heavier than it’s ever
been. He can’t move his neck or the rest
of his body and it seems to be incredibly shiny…how are you meant to skulk in
the dark? Trick question, Gotham is so filled with neon there’s no such thing as
dark anymore. Out of the suit he’s yet
to find his feet, having improved as an actor thanks to directors like David O.
Russell (Three Kings) and Steven
Soderbergh (Out of Sight) and is
horribly out of his depth in a role that’s been seemingly written by throwing
alphabetti spaghetti at a wall and making a note of the words that stick. Chris O’Donnell is even more annoying than in
Batman Forever, his smugness is
almost cripplingly bad but he’s not the only one. Alicia Silverstone, a dreadful piece of
casting, as Barbara Wilson (aka Batgirl), her facial expressions terrifying, her presence pointless. Having rewritten Barbara’s origin to give Alfred
more to do, and by default Hingle less, her purpose in the film is to throw a
little bit of disorder into Wayne Manor (much in the same way Dick’s appearance
in Forever did). She’s terrible, talks out of the side of her
mouth. Her presence is awkward,
difficult to watch and when on screen with O’Donnell (which is most of the
time) will make you want to kill yourself and everyone you’re sitting
with you. Uma Thurman is wasted, given
little to do other than pun her way through the two plus hours of the movie
like a green fingered Carry-On
character…but that’s not the worst bit.
Again Schumacher showcases his complete lack of knowledge of the Batman
universe and ruins a perfectly good character.
Bane is a killing machine, a one man army, he doesn’t feel pain and
works on a results based fighting style. A child of hard knocks, raised in a prison serving the sentence of his Father and becoming the most complete warrior there's ever likely to be. He’s a mercenary and unlike any foe Batman has ever had to face…but not
here. In Schmacher’s Batman & Robin he’s reduced to a
mindless thug, good for little more than saying his own name, carrying Ivy’s bags
and having big green veins. Why
introduce a character like Bane if you’re going to completely change his essence
and leave him to fill the background?
Only someone truly out of the depth could let that happen.

The scripts no better than the casting. The dramatic arches and turns are tired and can be
seen from many miles away. There’s no
innovation at all, all danger and problems can be solved by firing a Batarang
and swinging to safety. There’s also no
dialogue, simply exposition and puns. The
vast majority of dialogue emanating from the villains are shit jokes, it gets
incredibly tiring ridiculously quickly, the sets are like neon clad sex
clubs. There’s simply nothing likeable
about this film. I tried so many times
to want to like this film, telling myself that it had qualities, they were just
being overlooked because it was counter-contemporary but the truth is I was a
fool. I love Batman and don’t understand
how something so terrible could be allowed to get to the stage where it was on
a cinema screen in front of me and nobody said “wait a minute, this is fucking
terrible”...because everything is. Script, direction, sets, the Batmobile, score, CGI...it's all combines to create a film that shits in the face of the fans.

Batman & Robin is probably one of the worst films you’ll ever
have to sit through, ever aspect of the film is amateurish in quality and lazy
in execution. Clooney would later apologise
for the film, Schumacher would seek a third film behind the camera in an
attempt to give Batman fans a “real Batman film”, Warner (thankfully) refused
and the New York
born director who gave us nipples and the worst casting since Neil McCaul in Heil Honey I’m Home! became the
franchises ultimate super villain. For
almost a decade Batman (in live action form) was dead to the big screen.